Badger Sighting

[octagon]

Saturdays usually find the Boy and I going to town (pop 179) for a big breakfast before we start our chores at the ranch. On our way back we travel slowly looking for various critters before we start the days work. On Saturday last, as we were within a few hundred yards of the home place, a badger about three feet long and 20 or so pounds crossed the road directly in front of us, setting up a scramble for the camera, which being unfamiliar with, was unable to activate in time.

The badger was a deep brown color with white and black around the eyes and I knew immediately from it's gait that I had never seen this particular critter before. When he was about 20 yards away, he stopped, turned around, and glared at us with the meanest sneer I have ever witnessed on an animals face, like I owed him money, had dated his younger sister and bad- mouthed his momma all at once.

Badger sightings are pretty rare in my part of the country, and I know of only two other people who have seen one besides myself. When I got back to the house, I researched them a bit and found that they are known to eat rattlesnakes, and decided at once that they are welcome at my place.

[FWiedner]

What sort of environment exists on your place?

I'd be interested to know where a badger might be found.

What kind of places they hang out in and such.

Just for lookin' at, you understand.

[Mescalero]

Well,
If he has Mesquite, it is going to be a desert clime.

[octagon]

FW the home place is arid, and is located on the edge of what you might call hill country and the beginnings of the desert. If you were to draw a line from the NW corner of Texas to the Southern tip, and one from El Paso straight east the intersection of those two lines is very close to the ranch. I have learned that badgers exist in most of Tex except E. Texas. Our place is fairly brutal with temps from 113 in summer to occasionally minus zero in winter. Mescalero is right about the Mesquite- we have plenty and then some, with lots of deer, turkeys, dove, quail, sandhill cranes, armadillos, coons, rattlers, lions, and a wide variety of cactus, and wind that seemingly never stops. My slice of paradise.

[crs]

How far north of the Devils River are you?

[octagon]

CRS we are not far from Brady. I had access to a place on the Devils that was 27 sections for years.

[Mescalero]

I know where you are at.
You are in that last piece of badlands before you climb into the hill country.

[octagon]

Mescalero you are 100% correct. You can see the start of Hill country from my place. If you should ever get in the area, give a holler, I will give you the tour. A sunrise dove hunt is among the finest ways to start the day.

[Mescalero]

And a perfect outing for my L.C. Smith!

[J35]

Badgers are digging machines, those little legs are mighty stout and power-full.

I will never forget the first one I trapped, I had put in a flat set with a drag on a little finger ridge, I could check the set from a 1/4 mile with binocs, well the morning i caught the badger you didn't need no binocs to tell if the trap was gone or not, about 50 ft away it looked like a darn bomb crater, the landscape was definitely changed, dirt and rocks were piled up 2 -3 feet high in a 4 foot circle with a mesquite in the center.

I released this badger with a choke stick and several more over the years, they are one of the hardest animals to release, for the first 30 to 40 seconds you are not sure who has who, definitely a handful.

If you were to grab a badger on the back of the neck you would get bit, they can turn a long ways in there skin, that's why its the rare dog that can handle a badger alone.

-----J

[Mescalero]

I would wager that dog has the scars to prove it!

[geobru]

My dad told a story about 3 of their dogs took on a badger one night. The sounds lasted quite a while and the next morning the three dogs were all licking their wounds and the badger lay dead in a half acre of flattened alfalfa. He said that a badger could disembowel a single dog that grabbed it by the neck because they can turn around so far in their skin.

[Mescalero]

I have a pristene Badger hide mounted.
People always ask me what is that?
I say pound for pound, the meanest, toughest critter on earth.

[BrentD]

I have a pristene Badger hide mounted.
People always ask me what is that?
I say pound for pound, the meanest, toughest critter on earth.

Wolverines would take exception to that statement, but certainly their little brother the badger is a tough dude. One of them excavated a hibernating woodchuck from under my shop this winter. He moved enough earth that I'm afraid I'm going to have a sink hole like the one that swallowed those Corvettes a while back.

[piller]

About 30 years ago, I was out pheasant hunting with a few friends in SouthWest Kansas, and we watched one that was in the bottom of a dry gully. It was spotted by the fella who was walking the edge of the gully, and we all came over to see it. It saw us and turned and excavated its way up the other side of the 8 or 9 foot deep gully by just digging into the sandy soil to make a way up. The gully was about 6 feet wide and the badger was throwing sand onto us. We all just watched and didn't say anything. Pretty tough to get a bunch of teenage boys to shut up, but that badger did it. He dug himself a ramp up out of there in a few minutes of work, and impressed us in a hurry.

[vancelw]

I know a lot of Montana ranchers who have the mentality that if it isn't a cow, kill it.

I never could figure out why they wanted to shoot badgers. You rarely see them, unless you spend a LOT of time outdoors, like I do.
Most of the time, when you see them, they have a burrow on the edge of a prairie dog town (close to the food market.) I figure anything that eats prairie dogs but not calves would be good to have around.

[3leggedturtle]

glared at us with the meanest sneer I have ever witnessed on an animals face, like I owed him money, had dated his younger sister and bad- mouthed his momma all at once.

There was a small animal park where I lived a few years ago. I used to sneak in a big summer sausage to treat the critters:
The Artic Foxes would be waiting at the fence like I was ther long lost rich uncle.

The Yotes and Black Bears were indifferent about it but seemed to enjoy the snack.

The Badger would come out with a low growl and popping his teeth and giving me your described look on his face.

[BigSky56]

Vance its the holes those badgers make digging for varmints and such, cows and horses dont break legs in varmint holes but they do in badger digs, last year I dropped a tire on a rotary swather in one on the first cutting that cost some time & parts I keep the gophers thinned out to keep the badgers away personally I like them anything that mean makes me laugh I believe those little buggers are born with their switch in the pizzed off position if they dont make a nuisance of themselves I can live with them. danny

[vancelw]

I've always been very cautious riding in P-dog towns, but stuff happens. Of course, the towns are much larger now than they were 30 years ago since the poisons are so restricted.
It seems like the more you shoot the prairie dogs, the healthier the towns become Sure is fun trying, though.

I wonder how many a badger can eat in a day.

[Larkbill]

Have to admit,I was expecting a picture of a Russian bomber.

Had no idea they lived that far south, but after this winter I'll bet the population is up. Anything that mean could surely migrate if it felt like it. Do they eat armadillos?

[piller]

My Grandmother's place, a farm just 1 mile North of Turpin, OK, on the East side of Hwy 83, was abandoned after the death of my oldest Uncle. My Dad and his surviving brothers and sisters all agreed to lease it for farming. The house was not being used. A fire that destroyed the house and all the trees was started by a cigarette thrown out of a vehicle. A couple of months after the fire, I was back visiting my Parents, and my Dad and I went to look at the old Home Place. The cement that my Grandfather and Uncles had poured was all that was left. On the West end of the foundation was a root cellar that was completely cemented except for the door. The door was completely gone, and at the top step was the bones of a badger. We surmised that it had been living in the cellar and was driven out by the smoke and carbon monoxide from the fire. The fur and nails were gone, but the skeleton was in good shape. I was looking at the teeth, and my Dad commented that they looked a lot like a dog's teeth in shape and style. The bones were strongly constructed for the size. Funny thing is that no one had gone into the cellar in a long time as far as we knew. After my Uncle died, anything in there that anyone wanted had been removed. My Brothers and some Cousins had been around the old house, and no one had even known that a badger was there. I guess that no one had gotten too close to the cellar. Like a lot of wild animals, they might be somewhere around and not showing themselves. The farm has since been sold.

[J35]

A couple trapline photo's










------J

[Ben_Rumson]

Nice pics!
When I was a kid of about ten, Dad and I were out Jack Rabbit gunning on the open range of the west side of the San Joaquin Valley where its mostly alkalai & tumble weed and the occasional oil well when I had one rush up about half out of his den and bare his teeth at me then go back down as I walked by... I guess the sound he made you'd call a growl. I don't know what he had to eat out there unless they're fast enough to catch a jack....Plenty of horn toads out there though...However Portuguese sheep herders used to pen up & graze their sheep out there too sometimes.... Sometimes they'd kill four or five head of their diseased sheep and leave them to the buzzards... Maybe Mr. Badger was getting some of those eats...

[BrentD]

I've got a badger out in my back yard right now. I enjoy watching them for some reason. Much more interesting that coons. But a badger would make short work of him.